RCHS students say quality, great teacher source of recognition

It may be one of the county's newest high schools, but Rock Canyon quickly is developing a tradition of journalistic excellence.

Their school newspaper, The Rock, recently received national recognition for the fruits of its 2006-07 publication year. While this is the first time The Rock has received a national award, the student newspaper annually garners honors at other levels.

But much of the 26-student staff agrees that the quality of the monthly paper is far more important than the quantity of awards they receive.

"Instead of writing to win awards, a lot of the staff writes for quality and to report the news," said senior Megan McNally, 17, a reporter. "We don't really strive to win awards. It just happens because we're really into it. You really have to be into it. It is like a sport."

Features editor Alyssa Davanzo, 17, a senior, said, "I think we're getting these awards because we really work hard to make a great newspaper. Everyone is so creative. We're creative, but we're still able to lead the readers through the pages well."

The Rock received the All-American honor with four out of five marks of distinction from the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) for 2006-07. Newspaper adviser and English chair Jack Kennedy said the All-American is the highest rating the NSPA awards to student publications.

For 2006-07, The Rock also received first place at the NSPA Best of Show Denver convention, first place in the Colorado High School Press Association Newspaper Sweepstakes Contest and won a Gallup Award at the Quill and Scroll Critique for the second year in a row. The Rock has received many other awards since its first year in 2004.

Executive editor Susie Typher, a senior, said, "It's mostly Jack. When it comes down to it, it really is Jack."

Kennedy said consistency in leadership is one reason behind The Rock's success. Rock Canyon is a newer school, opened in 2003, and Kennedy said he had the opportunity to be with The Rock from the beginning.

"We invented the newspaper from scratch and built it from there," he said. "It was a cool challenge to start a newspaper from scratch. We've done some pretty amazing things."

Aside from helping launch the newspaper, Kennedy said he has a number of years of experience in the newspaper field. He is president of the Journalism Education Association and has won many personal awards from the Colorado High School Press Association. He majored in English at the University of Iowa, where he became the yearbook and newspaper adviser, and he said he ran the newspaper at Iowa City High School for 19 years. He was newspaper advisor at Heritage High School in Littleton for two years before coming to Rock Canyon.

"I've been doing this a long time," Kennedy said. He added an analogy of the result of a sports team changing coaches: "If a team changes coaches every year, it's not a good program."

Kennedy said another reason for the paper's success is the students.

"We've managed to attract a lot of talented journalists," he said. "We've gotten a good chunk of talent from the school."

But Kennedy said the most important thing to him is that "people actually sit down and read" the newspaper.

"The biggest award, of course, is from your own readership," he said.

Opinions editor Angie Baroffio said the paper's design must also have a lot to do with its success.

"Our design is really different (from other high school newspapers)," she said. "We're not boring. We like making our own art. The work that we turn out is really good."

Senior Jennifer Prusse, a reporter, said working on The Rock is a great way to hear stories from students that wouldn't normally get heard.

"It's a different kind of class," Prusse said. "It's more of a self-motivational class. The whole school gets to see it -- it's something to take pride in."

"It's interesting to go out," said reporter Ethan Gottula. "You get great people skills." Gottula is the only sophomore in the class.

Typher said working on The Rock gives her a great feeling of diversity because she gets to talk to all kinds of students in the school and tell their stories. And it helps that she likes deadlines.

"If there's a good story, I want to be the one to tell it," Typher said. "I just love the deadlines and high pressure of the journalism world."

"Writing is seriously therapeutic for me," Baroffio said. "It has become my favorite form of self-expression." "Some people do struggle with it, but when they really do produce some awesome stuff, it's fun to watch."

Kennedy urges his students to "think like a reader" and ask themselves, "Is this a good story?"

"Overall, I have pretty high expectations for them and I just keep pushing them," Kennedy said. "And they go get 'em."

Click here to read an article from the Sept. 21 issue of The Rock.